Lovers by the Lake Part Seven

Chapter Seven

It was getting late. Paul stood up and stretched before getting Amy some coffee. He handed a cup to Amy before he filled his cup and sat next to her to resume his life’s story.

“Gee, Amy, my life sounds boring compared to your adventures. Wasn’t the People’s Temple the religious group where everyone drank poison? I just can’t imagine you being involved with people like that. Your young life seemed so conservative—but now you want to know more about me. Well, let me see. I just got my football scholarship, and Sue dropped me like a hot potato,” Paul recalled.

The UT athletic department’s main office walls were covered with photos of former players who had gone on to achieve national fame. Looking around the office, I was impressed at the history and success of the football program. In Texas, football was not a game—it was very serious business. The university invested much into the program and expected to earn big dividends from the marketing division on each game.

The team members were carefully selected, and each was provided with very special benefits. All the players knew they would not have to worry about class work. On top of all the perks, the football team had a wonderful dorm. As long as they were part of the team, the players knew their future was bright.

I made friends with everyone quickly, but there was a certain amount of hazing everyone had to endure. Some of the older team members from big cities teased me about the small town I came from. There was no one else from my hometown on the team.

Fitting in with the other team members was not as easy as it was back in high school. It seemed like I was the brunt of all the small-town hick jokes. I did not let their taunting get me down. When one of the guys from the big city said, “Oh yeah, Paul, I’ve heard about your hometown; it was on the news back home—a report about how a divorce court judge had to warn a couple that even though the divorce was final, they were still sister and brother,” I would just smile and say, “Well, my daddy always told me that in those big cities, there were only two things—hot rods and queers—and I really don’t see a tailpipe on you.” That would spark a round of shoulder punching and backslapping. There was really only one way to prove you were one of the team: play hard and prove you were a team player.

I soon found I was not the only team member to have a car. Most of the students were from wealthy families. Old money spoke loudly in the halls of UT. But the money did not speak as loudly as before. Dad told me about the new “quota system” and how it would make it harder for white boys like me to get on the team.

I found out about the quota people and how they did not have to have the same grade point average to meet admission standards. The only exception to that rule was sports. UT was proud of their winning tradition, and the athletic department was showered with money to recruit talented young athletes. One thing I did learn: money could not buy you a spot, and there were no quota members on the team. All the players were tough, and everyone earned their position through years of training, hard work, and total devotion to the game, just like me.

Dad taught me to always give one hundred percent and make sure there was no doubt about being worthy of my position. By the end of my first college football season, I was one of the stars of the team and was no longer the brunt of the locker room jokes.

Being from Texas, I made friends with some of the other “Southern gentlemen” on the team. They took a certain pride in rounding up the quota students and teaching them their proper place. “Never good to let them become too uppity was the motto of the group. To me, it was just something to do when I was hanging out. There was never anything personal about it. You know, just a bunch of college jocks killing time. To tell the truth, I really did not have much free time to kill with these guys, as football training demanded a lot of effort.

Just like in high school, football training starts early in the year. Most of July and August were devoted to tryouts and preseason training. On my way back from the gym, on my way to see my girlfriend, Tammy, I felt like I must be the luckiest man on campus. I was a starter on the best football team and had found a beautiful woman to take care of me. She attracted my attention the first day on campus. She was tall and had the same general appearance as Audrey Hepburn.

Tammy was the first woman I ever knew who really liked football, and she loved to see me play. She helped me send out résumés to all the pro football teams. I still dreamed of playing on the Dallas Cowboys team, but I was willing to accept any offer as long as it was to play football.

Tammy was really good at taking care of details. She was a business management major and was planning to get her MBA. I devoted all my spare time to be with her, as long as the topic was football. Almost from the first day, we became a real item. This made it easier for me to concentrate on training for the games, as I no longer had to constantly prowl the quad to find a girl to satisfy my sexual cravings. After all, football players had to make sure no one even thought they were not “into women.”

I still ran everywhere, like Dad trained me to do. On one clear, hot August day, there was a lot of activity on campus. I was shocked at the sound of gunshots coming from the administration building tower while jogging along the pathway toward the dorm. I stopped short when I heard the screams of wounded students.

I dropped to my knees behind a staircase. From my vantage point, I could clearly see the puffs of smoke from the gun being fired near the top of the tower. I could see students bleeding and crying out for help, but I couldn’t rescue them without exposing myself to the shooter. All I could do was run to get someone from security to try to stop the carnage. I did not realize what was happening. I ran as fast as I could; I just wanted to get some help.

Later that day, on the local TV news, I heard a report.

“August first, 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman, a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former marine, killed sixteen people and wounded thirty-two others during a shooting rampage on and around the university’s campus. The first shots from the tower’s outer deck came at approximately eleven forty-eight a.m. A history professor was the first to phone the Austin Police Department after seeing several students shot in the South Mall gathering center; many others had dismissed the rifle reports, not realizing they were gunfire. It is difficult to understand the horror to which Americans were introduced by Charles Whitman…” the voice droned on, but I listened in total shock by the body count. I could not listen to the rest of the story. I was shaken to the core. It was just blind luck I was not in the area a few minutes earlier. I had been close enough to witness the carnage firsthand, and just the thought of the event made me feel ill.

“What is wrong with Texas? First JFK, and now this crazy man shooting students! What has happened to Texas?” I screamed.

I just could not understand the sudden surge of violence, yet in my heart, I knew it was just the beginning. These events were locked away from my conscious mind but were now a part of my development. Gone forever were the carefree days; the entire campus atmosphere seemed to be galvanized.

It seemed like everyone was unconsciously looking over their shoulder, like a nervous tick, when they walked around on campus. One big change was a noticeable increase of campus security. This was particularly obvious at the football games. Now there was a very noticeable security team present at all the games.

The additional security made life on campus more difficult. The wild frat parties were subject to unannounced raids by the police. I, like most of my teammates, found places off campus to hang out and party. This opened up the possibilities of female company all night instead of the midnight curfew imposed by the dorm police. I never spent much time cracking books; after all, I was on the football team.

On my next visit home, I told my parents I was safe and that they should not trust everything they saw on TV. I was not surprised to find out Peg had run off with a guy from New York. I knew she was not going to be happy in a small town, living out a small-town dream. She was a lot like me in that regard.

While I was at home, Mom informed me about all the local news. She made a point of letting me know Sue had gotten married to the new bank manager.

“Mom, is this another of your not-so-subtle hints I need to find a wife?” I asked.

“Well, dear, you don’t want to wait until all the good ones are taken,” she was quick to reply.

I had already found a sweet young lady who happened to be my biggest fan. I did not tell Mom, because it would only get her hopes up. After all, Tammy was just a sexy girl willing to do all my class work. If Mom knew about this arrangement, she would get all excited and start making all kinds of plans. It was better to just keep this a secret for the time being.

Tammy moved into the off-campus apartment. She was a real football fan, and she attended all the games. It was good to have a girl who enjoyed talking about the sport as much as I loved to play. Tammy did not seem to be interested in making a big deal out of the relationship, so why should I get Mom’s hopes up?

Tammy was happy to do my schoolwork so I would invite her to attend all the games, and the added benefit of my sexual interest in her made it even more enjoyable. I knew she was not the best-looking girl in school, and she was sure I was having sex with the cheerleaders when I came home really late after a game. I never told her about how I was really going to the physical therapy room to soak my legs in the hot tub to release the pain.

I thought it was better to let Tammy think it was one of the cheerleaders keeping me out late. I was sure she would not believe me if I told her the truth anyway. It really was football training I devoted all my time to, and training was demanding a lot of time. Each game was taking a bigger toll on me physically. It seemed like each game got harder, and my body ached much longer than when I played in high school.

The additional security did not mean much to me. I was only concerned about how the negative news articles might influence the scouts. This was my final year, and I wanted to be picked up by one of the better pro teams. Each game was important to make a good impression on the scouts.

The football season was almost over, and I had not heard any rumors about a team interested in picking me up during the draft. The big game between Oklahoma and UT was coming up. It was always a big game, and the scouts would surely be there to make their final reports back to the team managers. I spent almost all my time in the gym, working out and using the hot tub to ease my aching muscles. I felt in the best shape ever. Each day, during the training sessions, I made an extra effort to let the coach see how fit I was. I wanted to be the one to score the first touchdown of the game.

The team bus arrived a day early to give the team members a chance to get some practice on the field and get limbered up after the long bus trip. Tammy traveled on the booster club buses to attend the game. This was one game the fans just could not miss. The stands were filled to capacity. The booster club had burnt-orange pom-poms for all the UT supporters. All the UT spectators were dressed in burnt orange. One entire side of the stadium was a sea of orange. On the playing field, the roar of the crowd was almost deafening as the teams took to the field.

UT won the coin toss, and from the second we received the kickoff, twenty-two titans, eleven on each side, battled for victory and glory.

I was called upon repeatedly to gain critical yardage. Each time I took the ball, I hurled my body into the mass of the defensive line, pushing my body beyond any known limits, striving to prove I was the one who deserved to be drafted into a major team.

The opponents were not to be underestimated. They were all trying to get drafted, and all were playing to their fullest. Each tackle resulted in flames of pain burning through my body. With practiced determination I got up after each tackle and jogged back to the huddle, never giving any indication of the pain I was suffering.

In the final seconds of the first half, UT was stalled on the five-yard line. I was given the ball in a sloppy hand-off. The hand-off was so bad I was forced to turn my head and focus on controlling the ball. I rushed forward, just left of the center, as the linemen surged to open a hole. and did not see the safety running up on the outside.

The two-hundred-fifty-five pounds of defensive back blindsided me. I spun around and struggled to keep my feet moving toward the goal line. A second linebacker rushed in from the left, grabbing me at the knees and lunging forward.

My momentum, combined with the impact of nearly three hundred pounds of thrust provided by the tackle, carried me over the goal line. The impact knocked my breath away. My vision blurred, and I seemed to fall into a black tunnel. I did not hear the cheering as the referees held their arms up to indicate a touchdown.

The last thing I was conscious of was the disturbing sound of bones breaking before the darkness swallowed me.

I did not know I was carried off the field to a standing ovation. I was not conscious when the team doctor examined me. I remained in the darkness of a coma for days. I could not see, yet my mind was swarming with vivid images. I did not know what was real and what was my imagination. I was not sure if I was really feeling anything. All I was sure of was I could hear. The noises made by the different machines in the ward were incorporated into wild visions, as if in an attempt by the brain to make sense out of what it could not comprehend.

While I drifted in this state that was not a state, the sounds and smells around me were absorbed into my dreams. The dreams were strange; some were funny, but most were very scary. The dreams were vivid and as real as life. Thankfully, they turned out to be just delusional dreams. In some strange, unexplainable way, the sounds I heard became images so real I could almost reach out and touch them, except I couldn’t move. Entire rooms were created with furniture and people. Lifetimes were lived in these dreams, often funny, but all too frequently horrifyingly frightening.

There were times I heard voices. I could recognize my parents’ voices; they came by often. Even my sister came by to say she loved me and hoped I would get well soon. One other voice I did recognize was Tammy’s. She was there even more than my parents. There were lots of male voices drifting around, lost in the cloud of darkness. They were just voices; most I could not place, but I knew they must be team members. There was really no passage of time, but I was aware of the coming and going of people, as I heard their whispered voices through the shroud of darkness.

It was hard for me to tell exactly when I realized I was, indeed, in a hospital bed. It was hard for me to separate the misty memories, still haunting my mind, from the hard realities of the here and now. The memories seemed to be so real, and I was not ready to accept the fact I was in a hospital.

The memories of my best friends and teammates in high school hobbling through the hallways after they were injured flashed through my mind. I knew long before the doctor came to inform me of the damage to my leg, hip, and back that my football career was over. My great American dream crashed and burned on the goal line.

The doctor slowly explained the prognosis. The news was not all bad. The back injury was not permanent. I would be able to walk again. The broken bones in my leg and hip would heal in time, and I might not even have a lasting limp. All that was good news; the bad news was that the damage was severe enough to prevent me from ever playing football as a professional. The only football I would ever play would be with my children in the front yard.

“Oh, God, Paul, that must have been the worst moment of your life!” exclaimed Amy.

“Yeah, the moment I heard those words, I wished I had not woken up,” Paul replied, shaking his head.

The doctor’s words fell upon my ears like wet sandbags. I could only lie in the bed and let the news crash down until I was numb and motionless. I knew all too well my future was not going to be rosy. I thought back to the way I taunted the two team members in high school when they were injured and unable to play. Was there really something like karma, demanding the scales of universal justice be balanced? Was I being punished for my prior behavior? These questions raced through my mind as I tried to get a grip on the situation. Now, no longer on the team, I would be expected to compete academically. I knew that was not a good option. I was still lying flat on my back fighting to hold back tears, when Tammy came up to the bedside.

Tammy saw the pain in my eyes was much greater than the physical beating my body had sustained. She wanted to help, but she was not sure how. She pulled a chair up next to the bed and took hold of my hand.

“I was so worried about you. At the game, no one knew what happened when they took you off the field. Everyone thought you were in the locker room getting wrapped with some bandages. It was not until the second half, when they made the announcement, you had been taken to the hospital. You do know I was here every day to see you? I think I was here more than your parents. I overheard the doctor say you will be up and around again soon. You might not even have a limp. I just want to let you know, this is not the end of the world, and I want to help you any way I can,” Tammy proclaimed as she squeezed my hand.

“I don’t know about this not being the end of the world,” I said. “Football is really my life. It’s all I ever wanted to do. Maybe the best thing would be to take me out back and shoot me. After all, that’s what they do to horses with bad legs. I mean, I can’t even finish college, because I never studied a day these past four years.” I choked out the last few words as the tears started to run out of the corners of my eyes and down my face.

“Oh, God, I hate to see you this way, Paul. I know things look bad to you now, but the doctors said you will be able to walk again. You were a big man on campus, and everyone will remember your big touchdown. By the way, it was the winning score. You’re a hero. This is Texas, and I’m sure you will find a company eager to have a football hero on their team,” Tammy replied as she tried to comfort me. “I can help you with your résumés, and I have a lot of contacts around the area; they might help find you a job. Right now you just need to concentrate on getting better. Over the past three years we have been together, I have learned you might be more than just a jock,” Tammy whispered in my ear.

“I am not sure how you feel about me,” she continued. “At first I was just a convenience, someone to do your schoolwork and provide you with sex when you couldn’t find anyone better. I know you were having sex with all the cheerleaders and only came home to me when you needed help in school or just needed someone for sex. You may think you were using me, but to tell the truth, I was really using you. I was able to tell my parents I was going with a football player. I love football, and I used you to get to attend all the games. I was able to show you off to my classmates, and I even got a great deal of pleasure out of the sex we shared. The big difference is I will graduate with a degree and a lot of good memories, whereas you will flunk out because you thought brawn is better that brains. Now you must wake up and realize playing football is not the answer for most people. You really need to be able to do more. I have learned there really is more to the person ‘Paul’ than jock. Now is the time to bring out the other Paul and let him grow into a man,” she concluded with a deep sigh.

Dumbfounded, I just looked at Tammy. I did not say a word. Once again I was amazed by a woman. Once again I was reminded there were other points of view, and I was not really the center of the universe. It took a few minutes for me to think about what she said. Tammy sat next to me and waited for a response.

I could tell she was nervous by the way she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. I was fascinated by the sound produced by the sheer nylons as they rubbed together when she moved her legs. While I mused, listening to the whispering sound of the nylon, I thought back to all the times she was there to support me by doing class assignments and attending all the games. Now I took time to think about my life and what the future might bring. I thought about how Tammy had become a big part of my life even without knowing it.

“Stop that,” I sighed after listening to the nylons whisper again. “Stop rubbing your nylons together; you’re driving me crazy,” I continued while I turn my head to see her better. “Tammy, I just can’t think clearly right now, and the sound those nylons are making is causing me to get a strong desire to pull you into this hospital bed and see if at least part of my body still works.”

“I’m really happy you are still willing to put up with me. There were times when I was lost in the darkness, which I now know was a coma. I actually wished I was dead. Oh God, Tammy, I had visions—dreams so real I could not tell what was real and what was a dream. Some of them were funny, but a lot of them were very scary. I am not sure, but I think those dreams might be some omen, something trying to make me change my life. Now I see how I have wasted my life so far, and those horrible dreams were there to show me the error of my ways. As scary as the worst of those dreams were, they are nothing compared to what I woke up to. Now I lie here, and I do not see much in my future. It’s like a part of me did die. It is so reassuring to know you have not given up on me,” I declared, reaching out to take her hand.

I was always too busy chasing my dream to notice any social events going on. In those days, I belonged to the groups tormenting the shy kids, and I teased the students who worked hard to get good grades. I joined in with the group of “Southern gentlemen football players” to torment the black students. I never took note of the race riots. I never listened to the reports about the National Guard escorting students to classes of schools forcibly desegregated in the South.

Even though Texas was in the South, it avoided the ugly confrontations. I was unaware of the ugly images of people being beaten flashed across TV screens every night from Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. I was so obsessed with my own dream I did not hear about a black minister telling the world about his dream. I did not realize a very large part of the American population would love to be where I was right now. Because even as bad as my life seemed, it was much better than what most minorities were forced to live.

“Paul, up until now, you have never accepted, or for that matter, been aware of the situation on campus. You never paid attention to the groups of students protesting the US involvement in Vietnam. When the Kent State students were being shot down in their campus quad, you did not stop to think about what they were protesting. All the antiwar protests just seemed to get in the way of football and a good party. As long as they didn’t interfere with football, you didn’t care what they did. Now you are confronted with the all-too-real, possibility of losing your college deferment. Now Vietnam should have special meaning to you,” Tammy declared.

Her words hammered on me, and each word served to prove how much I had to learn. I could see that my macho approach to life limited my ability to see things going on in the real world. Slowly I started to realize my locker-room education about women and the world in general was totally inaccurate. All I could do was beg her to be patient and help me find “that other Paul” and grow up to be a man.

Over the next few days, I tried to tell Tammy about all the new thoughts swirling in my brain. I was very happy she came every day and stayed longer than anyone else. She started to bring my books with her, and she made me do all the work on my own She kept my GPA up high enough so even if I did not get great scores on my finals, I might still graduate. On one occasion, she told me about how she met with some of her business contacts and how she had been trying to get me a position.

“I really need to take a break. Just thinking about the emotions burning my soul at the time has me shaking. I noticed you didn’t make any comments. Are you upset with me?” inquired Paul.

“Oh, no, Paul,” said Amy. “I didn’t comment because I was trying to comprehend how you felt. I am sure I could never deal with such crushing news. You know, for a jock, you were very fortunate to have met good, strong women able to give intelligent, thoughtful support. I can see how talking about your tragic turn of events has brought back powerful emotions. Now maybe you can see why I wanted to have this talk. I needed to know what made you into the person you are today, and I already have learned so much…It’s late, but you need to know more about Mark. He was a big part of my life and played a big role in my development.”